During our venture through grade school, we are taught some of the basic fundamentals of supply and demand. We learned that if there was a high supply of a product with low demand then the price of that product would be low, however, if there is a low supply of a product with a high demand then the price of the product would be high.

Unfortunately, some of the major companies that control our society seem to be capitalizing on consumer demand through Limited Edition products.

In the past, most commercial products that were limited edition were sold during a specific time frame, however, the supply of the product was sufficient enough to satisfy consumers. This no longer seems to be the case as there has recently been a number of limited edition products that have been released with scarce supply, leaving consumers extremely upset.

The most recent occurrence of a major company capitalizing on the laws of supply and demand was seen in McDonald’s recent release of the Rick and Morty Szechuan Sauce promotion. With Rick and Morty being one of the most popular animated television shows, there was a surplus of consumers that waited hours to receive their own packet of the limited edition sauce. Conflicts sparked when it began to look as if McDonald's was not ready for the surge of customers, as there most McDonald;s locations did not have enough packets of the promotional sauce for everyone that was there for the sauce. As a result of the extreme shortage of the highly demanded Rick and Morty Szechuan Sauce, we have seen those who weren’t able to initially get their hands on the sauce do ridiculous things to get it. Luckily, McDonald’s announced that they plan on having another circulation of the rare sauce.after seeing the negative feedback the sauce shortage was generating.

Nintendo is another powerhouse company that appeared to take advantage of the laws of supply and demand with the release of the Nintendo classic edition that was released last holiday season. Just like the McDonalds Rick and Morty Szechuan sauce, Nintendo failed to release enough Nintendo classic edition units to satisfy consumer demand leaving consumer to rely on desperate measures to have any chance of obtaining a Nintendo classic edition of their own. To make things worse Nintendo decided to launch the Super Nintendo classic edition several months later, which suffered supply issues of its own. Nintendo attempted to ease some of the stress the Supply shortage was due to the fact that they were unaware that the Nintendo edition would be so popular, however, this can be hard to believe considering how powerful Nintendo’s name is.

Despite the fact that companies seem to take advantage of the fundamentals of supply and demand, it is amazing what some consumers are willing to do to obtain the limited edition items that are becoming harder to obtain as time goes on.